Tuesday, September 30, 2008

The American Psychiatric Association is meeting to review their definition, standards and practices with regards to many topics. The two we are most interested in is Gender Identity and Sexuality. The following is a petition I created to get the APA to review their stance on Asexuality and not consider it a mental disorder. Asexual people are fully capable of living healthy and normal lives and should not be pathologized.

Asexual people and Allies please spread the word about the petition...

For ten years I went down the list the AMA had for treatable illness so I could stick my "gender disphoria curse" on a sharp stick and watch it die.Slowly on my own becuse at the time there were very few who would see someone "like me" I became aware.Now I know. I have a blessing. I do get help, mainly to deal with people like the AMA!

Even though I'm an asexual who has been secretly wanting to take on the DSM for quite some time and who has been reading up on some of the professional literature now that it may be a real possibility, I wouldn't sign a petition. Whatever decision the APA makes, I think they will want to feel that they made it based on science rather than political pressure. Also, as asexuals, we do not yet know what exactly we are wanting to propose since the diagnosis of HSDD may be helpful for some people and because we need to know what kind of arguments would be best received by the APA. Still, the support of the queer community will, I think, be very valuable in this enterprise.

i thought it only qualifies as a disorder in clinical terms if it "causes marked distress or interpersonal problems" or like anything if it interferes in daily life, enabling people who are having trouble with such an aspect of their life to find recognition of what they perceive to be a problem, and help. presumably people who are happy with the way they are, wouldn't generally run into problems with psychologists or other mental health professionals as a result. so why the big deal?